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Beef Fajitas and Cauliflower Rice

My daughter and I share a few very special traits, one of which is curly hair.

Beautifully curly hair. I have always been fascinated by curly hair. Sure, I went through phases of wishing I had straighter hair but I had this conviction that my natural hair could be beautiful.

What does hair have to do with supper? Good question. I’ve got a story for that. I was talking to my daughter about braids. She had picked a book up from the library about all sorts of French braids and variations and we were trying one out. Braids can be tricky with such tangled tresses as ours. Sometimes it is disappointing that the end result does not look like its straight-haired counterpart.

At the end of a rather long explanation about the intricacies of braiding- I paused and asked, “So what do you think?” She returned with her own lengthy pause and replied,

“I really don’t know much about braids.”

The humility was refreshing.

My husband said so.

It got me thinking. Sometimes we make simple things so complicated – like supper.

I was not in the mood to cook. It was Saturday and I had thawed a pound of stew meat but the motivation was just not there. At 6:30 my husband and kids look at me with eyes that say- “are you really not making dinner” and I sigh.

To the kitchen.

I pull out a head of cauliflower, a pound of stew beef and a bag of frozen peppers. I heat some EVOO in a skillet and call my mom for the recipe to Chinese Pepper Steak. No, I don’t have all the ingredients. Sigh. What now?

I toss the peppers into the oil and grab a half an onion out of the frig and slice it quickly and add it in. I heat a second skillet and do a quick chop of the meat into smaller chunks. I rub them down with chili powder and toss them into the dry pan.

Next I crush garlic into the peppers and give a quick stir to each pan. I call to the kids to set the table. Everyone is getting excited. Dinner is starting to smell good. I toss the cauliflower into the food processor and rice it. After empting the veggies into a serving bowl I toss the cauliflower into the pan and swirl in some more EVOO and give a few stirs.

Satisfied everything is coming along, I head to the pantry for some salsa- mmm…homemade peach salsa from the summer looks perfect. I dump most of a pint in with the meat and give the cauliflower a few stirs. Almost done.

I call everyone to the table and smile. I had no idea what dinner was going to be 20 minutes ago.

1. Heat two skillet pans with a EVOO
2. Saute veggies with until heated through and tender
3. Coat beef with chili powder and salt and pepper and let simmer
4. Rice Cauliflower in food processor
5. Remove peppers from pan and cook cauliflower with EVOO for 5-10 min until soft
6. Add in most of salsa to meat, stir.
7. Once cauliflower is done and meat is cooked to your liking add in veggies to meat
8. Serve meat & peppers over “rice” and top with remaining salsa.